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Shopping from home is getting bigger – with a smartphone and access to Wi-Fi, you can buy not only fashionable clothes, but also an apartment with a car. We figure out how to safely spend even large amounts of money on the Internet
Buy from home
users are already accustomed to ordering clothes or household goods through AliExpress or Yandex.Market — in 2020, the online sales market amounted to ₽2,7 trillion, and almost half of purchases come from marketplaces. However, the coronavirus pandemic has triggered the growth of other segments of online commerce. First of all, people began to order food more often – their online sales reached ₽130 billion, and this is without taking into account sales on marketplaces.
In April 2021, the authorities allowed the sale of over-the-counter medicines online – you can order them on marketplaces or in pharmacies with delivery. And pharmacy customers immediately took advantage of this opportunity: in 2020, online sales of medicines grew to ₽131 billion, not counting sales through the four large marketplaces. Both segments accounted for 5% each in the structure of the total e-commerce turnover.
The number of large online purchases has also increased. According to Google and marketing agency Kantar, in 2021, 7% of Russian car showroom customers bought cars without leaving their homes. At the same time, in 2021, according to the forecasts of the Association of European Businesses (AEB), about 1,756 million new cars will be sold, which means that, according to rough forecasts, about 120 thousand cars will be bought online in our country per year. This can be done on the websites of official dealers.
In addition to cars, our country does not buy other necessary things online, such as electronic insurance policies for OSAGO or CASCO.
But the largest online purchases were apartments. For several years, it has been possible to buy, sell or donate apartments remotely using an electronic digital signature, which is considered an analogue of a person’s personal signature. You can get such a signature at accredited certification centers – for this you need to come to it once with the necessary documents (the package of documents for different types of signatures is slightly different). In the future, it can be useful not only for buying or selling an apartment, but also for signing other documents, participating in auctions or contacting government agencies.
One of the largest housing developers, the PIK group, in 2020 decided to completely abandon sales offices and transferred all transactions with its customers online. Sell real estate online and other developers – “Ingrad”, “Rodina”, GC “Pioneer” and the like.
What are the dangers of online shopping
Buying online is convenient, but not always safe. Online shopping can threaten to lose money from personal accounts and leak personal data that attackers can use for their own purposes.
In October 2021, one of the largest leaks of confidential data from the marketplace became known. More than 1,75 million records of customers of the Brazilian electronic platform Hariexpress turned out to be in the public domain. It was possible to find out the full names, numbers of the Brazilian system of registration of legal entities (CNPJ), payment details, phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses and registration addresses not only of buyers, but also of online stores that worked with the marketplace.
Another danger when shopping online is the loss of money from the card. The buyer enters the site, makes a purchase and enters his card details. However, instead of writing off money in the amount of the cost of the goods, he may lose all the money available on the card. This is due to phishing sites – Internet pages that look the same as normal ones, but are designed to steal information or download malware to the user’s computer or smartphone. You can distinguish a phishing page from a real one by the address: usually the address of a fake site differs by one or two letters.
Moreover, because of a purchase on a phishing site, you can lose money not only on one bank card, but also on others: through a phishing site, fraudsters can download malware that gains access to all banking applications. According to statistics, in 2020, 42% of our country experienced phishing and 27% were victims of such fraud. Of those who were victims of phishing, just over a quarter (27%) said they had to change their account passwords, 13% talked about the theft of money, and 11% had their personal data stolen. Another 11% of victims had to cancel their credit or debit cards.
Among those who suffered financial losses, 43% lost up to ₽3500, every fifth (20%) lost from ₽3500 to ₽6999, 11% – from ₽7 thousand to ₽14 thousand, 5% – from ₽14 thousand up to ₽21 thousand and only one out of five (20%) – more than ₽21 thousand.
This type of fraud is especially dangerous during a major transaction, such as buying an apartment or car, because at that time there is a large amount of money in the account.
How to shop safely online
There are several ways in which you can reduce the risk of money theft or data leakage.
Two-factor identification
Two-factor authentication is a method of user identification on websites or services based on two “keys”. One key – a SIM card, which receives a confirmation message for entering the site – the user owns, and he remembers the other key (login and password).
Thanks to two-factor authentication, even if attackers gain access to the user’s password and login, they will not be able to get into, for example, an online bank, because they will not have the necessary SIM card.
The user can connect two-factor identification independently in the security settings of services. Now such an opportunity is available on all popular resources – from banking applications to Instagram.
There are several more methods of two-factor identification, for example, code generators in the form of a key fob with a button and a small screen and other specific methods, they are used mainly for the corporate sector.
Virtual bank
A virtual bank card will help keep your bank details secret. Digital cards are issued online and are analogous to plastic ones in terms of their functionality: they can be used to make transfers, payments on the Internet, and also download to mobile wallets (Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, etc.)
You can open such a bank card in a few minutes through a banking application and keep it empty, transferring certain amounts only for online purchases. Such a card is tied to the main bank account, but if fraudsters get its details and CVV number, they will not be able to steal significant amounts, since the card will only contain the necessary minimum, and not the salary transferred yesterday.
Such cards are reliable and popular – by the end of 2023, the largest bank in our country – Sberbank – plans to issue 50% of all cards issued exclusively in digital format. The second largest bank VTB wants to issue digitally up to 2023% of all bank cards by 40.
If you don’t want to open a virtual card or it’s not possible, you can pay for online purchases using an electronic wallet, such as WebMoney or Qiwi. This will also help keep your bank cards safe.
Use Mobile ID
Mobile ID is a service that helps identify users. It simplifies registration and authorization on online resources, including government ones, and also simplifies and speeds up the receipt and purchase of various goods and services.
When a subscriber draws up a contract for the provision of communication services, he undergoes full identification. The data necessary for this is stored by the telecom operator and, with the consent of the subscriber, can be transferred from the Mobile ID profile to third-party resources. If the online platform has the opportunity to use this service, the subscriber does not need to remember the login and password and fill out various registration forms. It pulls information from the subscriber profile ID and allows you to identify him by phone number, verify, for example, his age in an online alcohol store, provide auto-completion of forms for the delivery of purchased goods, purchase an air ticket, and so on.
The service is available to subscribers of the Big Four operators. To identify or register using Mobile ID, you just need to enter a phone number and confirm it with a push notification. If the phone is in a mobile network, then the number will be substituted automatically.
For example, using Mobile ID from MegaFon, you can make purchases from foreign sellers on AliExpress without filling out customs forms “manually” – the necessary information is loaded automatically. This speeds up the process and helps the buyer avoid mistakes that could cause the package to be delayed or not delivered at all.
For the stores themselves, the service helps to simplify the customer journey and, as a result, increase sales conversion. MegaFon was the first telecom operator to implement the ability to connect to the Mobile ID service through its aggregator platform. As a result, the company does not need to enter into agreements with each telecom operator separately, and the service itself is available to all Big Four subscribers.
With the help of “Mobile ID” you can not only buy services, but also be identified in online wallets. This feature is available in the YuMoney, WebMoney, Qiwi services. Also, using Mobile ID, you can issue a debit card on the Alfa-Bank website – with the consent of the client, information about it is automatically filled in the application form for its issue.
Trust familiar networks
While using public wireless networks, it is not recommended to make purchases – with their help, attackers can also gain access to the buyer’s data and deprive him of money. A popular way to hack phones through public networks is to place a fake public Wi-Fi hotspot next to a legitimate hotspot. It is almost impossible to distinguish such a point from the real one. A fake network may have a similar name to the official one: by mixing up the names and deciding to connect to it, the user may become a victim of scammers who gained access to his phone.
If an incident with the loss of money or personal data has occurred, you can try to protest the operation at your bank, it is also worth writing a statement to the police. However, it is best to prevent such cases: trust your data only to trusted companies with all the necessary licenses and do not neglect new modern identification and authentication services.